One of the most user requested artists that I should do a tone video for
has undoubtedly been Chuck Schuldiner of Death.
The band Death has had more than 27 members throughout the years they were active
and Chuck is the only member that has been with the band through the years
when they were formed in 1983 until his passing in 2001, when he passed away battling cancer
And I'm gonna be completely honest, Death has somewhat gone under my radar
when I started listening to metal back in the 90s
However, I always knew the band, but never took a chance to really listen to them until a few years back
And I particularly listened the most to the albums Symbolic and Human
For this video I'm gonna try and mimic the sound of the album Symbolic.
So, when trying to achieve Chuck's tone there are two crucial pieces of gear that I would need
The first thing would be the DiMarzio X2N pickup that he used in his Bc Rich guitars
the X2N is a wide-bar high output pickup and as you can see no neck pickup.
This guitar is a Bc Rich Stealth that was released in around 2008 as a tribute to Chuck
and it's a very small guitar, it has 24 frets with a 24.75 inch scale length
And the other thing that would be crucial for Chuck's tone for the last Death albums, including Symbolic
would be the Marshall Valvestate amplifier. Now ...
But it actually has one single preamp tube in it, but the rest is just solid-state
Chuck also used the Valvestate 4x12, but in this test I'm using a Hesu 2x12 cabinet with Demon speakers in it
Also, something I think I can hear on the Symbolic album
Is that there is some kind of chorus effect going on, like, very slight on the rhythm guitars
I mean, so subtle, but I reckon this would be a studio chorus added in a mix
I'm gonna be completely honest, back in the day in the 90s, when I had the Dual Rectifier
I would try and stay away from the Valvestate as much as possible, it was like the ...
It was considered being a shitty amp at that time, at least for what I was playing, but yeah.
I'm kind of excited to try this one out, because I've heard a lot of clips, and yeah
Obviously Death used it and the album sounds is good. So, let's just see how it sounds.
Let's just hear how it sounds, god damn it.
I can't even play this f***ing song, okay.
F***
What the f***?
You have to be careful not to push the strings too hard
because of the shorter scale, the strings go sharp if you play too hard.
Yeah the sound is very scooped and yeah, the contour on the overdrive 2 is really weird
because however I set it, the sound is always very scooped. I mean, I have the middle at max now.
Listen.
Okay.
Clean channel.
Wow is that ... what is that?
I mean the pickup is so high output. It's stupid.
Do not steal this riff!
Alright, enough of that tone shift.
Oh, okay. Still farting out, sorry.
At higher volume, so
Yeah, that sounded more like ass in my opinion.
I mean whatever I do with the contour it's still scooped
but you know, the Death guitar tone is kind of scooped sounding, so I guess that's it
Alright, so now it's a couple of days later
When I was making the other recording this past Friday, it's Monday today
The amplifier just sounded like shit to be honest. I was like "Ugh ..."
It sounded awful, and even the recording sounded really awful in my opinion
So I figured I would try and change out the the preamp tube in the Valvestate
So I switched it out, the one that was in it was the original Marshall Valvestate preamp tube
This amplifier is from '98, that tube was 20 years old
So I guess it was kind of time to change out the preamp tube, so I put in a Tung-Sol preamp tube .
So here I am three days later. Let's try this again, okay?
This guitar is a bitch to tune. Okay, let's try this again.
Shit.
Yeah, I think it sounds a lot better now with the preamp tube being changed
Okay, just as a quick test, I want to hear how it sounds when it's boosted so let's try that out.
This is a Fortin 33 boost, okay? Okay. Good, good talk. Let's hear how it sounds.
I guess there you have it. I think this set up definitely reminds me of the Symbolic tone
also something you have to consider is that my finger tone is just something else other than Chuck's
So that's of course a factor to consider.
Yeah, I think I got pretty close to his tone to be honest
Yeah, let me know in the comment section what you thought, if I did everything wrong
or yeah, If I did a pretty decent job, so yeah if you liked this video please subscribe to my channel
If you have any suggestions on what artists I should do another one of these videos for
let me know in the comment section
And thank you so much for watching, and yeah, see you next time man
Also don't forget to check out my cover of the song Crystal Mountain, you can find it right over here
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